How Valuable is Life?

[quote]kamui wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]kamui wrote:

Even if life had no “objective” intrinsic value, you would still have to evaluate it as higly as you can. [/quote]

I am interested to know why you say this?[/quote]

Because if you don’t (evaluate life as highly as you can), you’ll end up “averagely moral” at best, and frankly sociopathic at worst.

Your position on this spectrum is neither static nor neutral. If you don’t try to reach its top, you may very well fall at its bottom. [/quote]

If you don’t mind me asking, it looks like you believe in a basic set of human rights for policy reasons, i.e., they promote good results, rather than because they are divinely granted. Am I correct or mistaken?

[quote]Varqanir wrote:
This is a followup to the running (and persistent) debate over abortion on the Planned Parenthood and Teen Pregnancy thread, and on a few others. I alluded to the question in passing, but I’d like to address it more fully here.

The presumption in the abortion debate is that a human fetus is just as alive and just as human–and therefore as valuable–as an infant, or a child, or an adult.

Let us agree that a fetus is alive. This is self-evident. If it were dead it would not grow. Let us also agree that it is human. It could not be otherwise. Human sperm and human eggs cannot combine to form anything other than a human embryo, which will inevitably become a human infant, unless the process is interrupted by biological, chemical or mechanical means.

So. No arguments so far, correct? A zygote, an embryo, a fetus and an infant are all equivalent in their being alive and human.

Let us for the moment sidestep issues of sentience or viability outside the womb. Let us assume that the living human embryo will, if not hindered from doing so, develop into a healthy baby.

Now, the question. Does this embryo have objective, inteinsic value, by virtue of its being alive and human?

We’ll also sidestep the fact that even a dead embryo or fetus has some value to scientific and medical science. Let’s confine the conversation to a living human organism. Is it a thing of value, and is its value determined by the fact that it is alive, or the fact that it is human?

How valuable is it, why is it valuable, and who decides?

The answers I’ve heard range from the tautological (“a human life is valuable because it’s a human life”) to the legalistic (“a human life is valuable because we all have the right to life”) to the religious (“a human life is valuable because we are created by God in his image”) to the non-argument (“it just is, and how can you even ask such a question?!”)

(Parenthetically, I hear the same arguments about money. Why is a US dollar valuable? It just is. The government tells us it is, and we believe it. But that’s another matter.)

I said on the other thread that everyone falls into a continuum of perception of the intrinsic value of life. On one end, we might find a person who believes that all life, from the lowest orders to the highest, is equivalent in value, and it is wrong to end the lives of any living thing, animal or vegetable. Far off on the other end, we have what we might term the sociopath or psychopath, who believes that only his own life is valuable.

In between we have those who think the lives of their family members are more valuable than the lives of others, that the lives of members of their own tribe or nation are more valuable than those of other tribes or nations, and those who believe that the lives of members of their own species are the only lives with any real value.

Understandably, we all fall on different points of the “perceived value of life” continuum, which is why I anticipate getting a range of different answers.

So tell me: is life intrinsically and objectively valuable, does some life have more value than other life, how valuable is life (in concrete terms: words like “priceless” or “precious” are meaningless), and why?
[/quote]

Interesting, the question that has to be answered first, is to whom the child’s life belongs. Because the value of said life differs depending on the owner of that life.

If the life of the child belongs to the child, in almost all cases the child would view its own life as nearly priceless. Yes, there might be some exceptions, but almost all humans hold their lives very dear.

If the life of the child belongs to G-d, well, who knows what He thinks. But He certainly has gone to a lot of trouble getting us here. So, I suspect the value is quite high, as well.

Importantly, I do not believe the life of the child belongs to the parents, in that it is illegal and immoral to own another person — slavery, in fact. So, while parents act for a child, they act as steward for either the child himself (or herself) or G-d.

[quote]kamui wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]kamui wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]kamui wrote:

Even if life had no “objective” intrinsic value, you would still have to evaluate it as higly as you can. [/quote]

I am interested to know why you say this?[/quote]

Because if you don’t (evaluate life as highly as you can), you’ll end up “averagely moral” at best, and frankly sociopathic at worst.

Your position on this spectrum is neither static nor neutral. If you don’t try to reach its top, you may very well fall at its bottom. [/quote]

I mean more along the lines of: if life has no “objective” intrinsic value, and therefore morals have no “objective” reality or existence, then what does it matter is someone is considered highly, or not highly, moral?[/quote]

as long as you’re not a sociopath, as long as you’re not at the very bottom of the spectrum, morals still have a subjective reality for you.
You know that there is a spectrum, and you know where it ends.
You can deny it, you can ignore it, you can act against it, etc, but it still exists.

[/quote]

I would argue that true physicalism demotes even the subjective to utter meaninglessness. If all of existence’s history and futurity can be comprehensively and exhaustively listed in the form of the single word dots, then I do not believe that human life, or anything else, has value.

I do not really know what to make of this but I think it belongs here:

Dont know where I picked this up, but I believe it to be true that almost all genocides begin with a process of declaring your future victims to be less then human.

Basically, there is a process of increasingly malignant and violent “othering”.

Now, I am somewhat reluctantly pro choice, but I am seriously wondering whether it is not true that declaring that embryos before a certain stage are not “human” or “persons” is a form of exactly that mechanism.

Creating my daughters life has certainly increased my subjective value of my own life.

The value of a life is in the eyes of the beholder. Financially I hope me and my family will produce more value to society than we consume.

[quote]Waittz wrote:

[quote]Varqanir wrote:

[quote]Waittz wrote:

[quote]Varqanir wrote:
.

So tell me: is life intrinsically and objectively valuable, does some life have more value than other life, how valuable is life (in concrete terms: words like “priceless” or “precious” are meaningless), and why?
[/quote]

But all life is in fact inheritly “priceless” to the beholder because there is no amount of value or wealth that someone can offer an invidivual in exchange for it.

To anyone outside of the individual that value is variable based on the one doing the valuation.
[/quote]

Jesus’ life was valued at thirty Tyrian drachmas, which is about $250 at today’s exchange rate. [/quote]

Which does not disprove my first statement and only agrees with my second statement.

EDIT- and the Jew in me just said outloud “Such a bargain” in my best Barbara Streisand voice when i read it [/quote]

The Sanhedrin certainly thought so. Thirty drachmas to be rid of a rabble-rousing heretic who was threatening their cozy relationship with the occupying power? Bargain of the century. And they even got their money back!

I think a further stipulation needs to be made: namely that the human life is innocent of violent crime against another. Violent felons have violated the value we place on another human life, regardless of how that value is place (regarding the questions being asked here), and therefore have forfeited some or all of their claim to life value. It may be debated whether or not the death penalty is just based on the value of human life or who is qualified to judge that–but it cannot be denied that we have collectively, and for good reason, decided that they can no longer be allowed around the rest of the species and thus decreased their value by restricting them in ways other are not.

[quote]Varqanir wrote:
How valuable is it, why is it valuable, and who decides?
[/quote]

Is your life valuable?

Why?

He is valuable to this board, the best thing to have happened to it in years.

Varqanir â??

All individual human life has value from the moment of conception until the moment of natural death. All human life has the exact same value, cannot be repeated and never will be in the future. The choices one makes in this life do not matter. In relation to their value, a person who slaughters children for a living should receive the same value as s protester out on the sidewalk. I struggle with the last portion.

All other life in this world also has value. All other forms of life are NOT comparable to human life, not even close. The different classes are valuable according to their traits. A snow leopard is far more that a cockroach. When I find a black widow in Arizona, I burn them. Just as when I find a rattlesnake pit, I slice them up in the cool fall mornings. I always leave dandy long-legged spiders alone and I try to put a bull snake where he will find food as I find them in the sagebrush. A wood duck is always respectable to a dumb pigeon who spreads disease. It is nearing my sleep time, so . . . .

Be well and GOD Bless with Love.

Bullshit…Read the article below then re-read the initial post and notice shallow it is… also picture Varq’s post on the wall
of a nursing home for everyone to see…odds are a few just may get nauseous just reading it, and in WW2 Vets it may echo
portents and memories of the eugenics programs practiced in Nazi Germany, because these questions always begin ‘innocently’,
and ‘just wanting to begin the conversation’.
Roe V. Wade did not foresee the ‘slippery slope’ of that law with Scissors inevitably scrambling brains in third trimester atrocities,
with EVERY ONE of these ‘abortion’ type posts here, NOT ONE has mentioned the inevitable slippery slopes these laws bring later,
because then on the opposite end we may just start debating mass euthanizing the Elderly in like manner, en masse
just like Abortions, questioning how '‘valuable’ the life is, of an elderly/disabled nursing home resident…are they not ‘‘parasites’’
in like manner? Why are THEY being kept alive? They are contributing NOTHING to society now…are they?

Juries value human lives all the time and put a dollar figure on them. Here is my non-scientific take on value from being around the courtroom for a while:

In our county (USA) your life is relatively more valuable if you have a longer life expectancy and a higher earning potential or have the responsibility to provide for others than if you are older or don’t work or earn. It also helps if you are white and male and aren’t a shit-bag or a convict, unless your jury pool favors a different ethnic group. Mothers who are homemakers can get a bump from some juries, but it is better to be an earner than a caretaker when putting a number on life’s value. Smoking and drug use is also generally a no-no with juries and if you died in a car wreck having your seat belt on is a big plus. It also helps to be local and a citizen. Having a good lawyer and a good jury pool is a very big plus. You generally don’t want engineers or republicans on your jury or republican engineers and you really don’t want fat women regardless of political affiliation, because they generally don’t have sympathy for anybody, of course there are exceptions for these general rules depending on the case.

In some states, if you die in the womb you aren’t worth anything, others allow juries to give you value if you die in the womb and can prove you are viable, a few allow for the wrongful death of a fetus at all stages, but the earlier the fetus dies generally the less they are worth. A baby born but who dies shortly thereafter in some hideous way is worth big bucks unless the state has tort-reform caps. Every state that I know of will allow the mother to recover for the lost companionship of the fetus as component of her injury, even if it doesn’t allow a value for the independent life of the fetus.

If you die at work and are workers-comp covered there’s a book that says how much you are worth and it ain’t much, so get over yourself wage earners. You aren’t that valuable in a workers’ comp state.

If you die and have life insurance your life is worth whatever you and your insurer agree it is worth, unless you kill yourself, or the company thinks you killed yourself.

[quote]Aragorn wrote:
I think a further stipulation needs to be made: namely that the human life is innocent of violent crime against another. Violent felons have violated the value we place on another human life, regardless of how that value is place (regarding the questions being asked here), and therefore have forfeited some or all of their claim to life value. It may be debated whether or not the death penalty is just based on the value of human life or who is qualified to judge that–but it cannot be denied that we have collectively, and for good reason, decided that they can no longer be allowed around the rest of the species and thus decreased their value by restricting them in ways other are not.[/quote]

So you are saying that the intrinsic value of a life fluctuates depending on its innocence. Rather like the value of a bride (and therefore the amount of her bride-price) increases if she is still a virgin.

[quote]Karado wrote:
Bullshit…Read the article below then re-read the initial post and notice shallow it is… also picture Varq’s post on the wall
of a nursing home for everyone to see…odds are a few just may get nauseous just reading it, and in WW2 Vets it may echo
portents and memories of the eugenics programs practiced in Nazi Germany, because these questions always begin ‘innocently’,
and ‘just wanting to begin the conversation’.
Roe V. Wade did not foresee the ‘slippery slope’ of that law with Scissors inevitably scrambling brains in third trimester atrocities,
with EVERY ONE of these ‘abortion’ type posts here, NOT ONE has mentioned the inevitable slippery slopes these laws bring later,
because then on the opposite end we may just start debating mass euthanizing the Elderly in like manner, en masse
just like Abortions, questioning how '‘valuable’ the life is, of an elderly/disabled nursing home resident…are they not ‘‘parasites’’
in like manner? Why are THEY being kept alive? They are contributing NOTHING to society now…are they?[/quote]

This is one of those “non-arguments” I was mentioning before.

Do you actually have an answer, Karado?

[quote]Varqanir wrote:

[quote]Aragorn wrote:
I think a further stipulation needs to be made: namely that the human life is innocent of violent crime against another. Violent felons have violated the value we place on another human life, regardless of how that value is place (regarding the questions being asked here), and therefore have forfeited some or all of their claim to life value. It may be debated whether or not the death penalty is just based on the value of human life or who is qualified to judge that–but it cannot be denied that we have collectively, and for good reason, decided that they can no longer be allowed around the rest of the species and thus decreased their value by restricting them in ways other are not.[/quote]

So you are saying that the intrinsic value of a life fluctuates depending on its innocence. Rather like the value of a bride (and therefore the amount of her bride-price) increases if she is still a virgin. [/quote]

No, I’m saying that if you really want to try to tackle this big of an issue that it would be wise to work from the simplified “ideal” model to the real complicated thing. Just as you would simplify a biochemical experiment in vitro or even on the computer or physics experiment before tryi.g to surmount in vivo or clinical trials, or an engineering feat. would view this in line with the granted simplifications in your original post :). It’s complicated enough of an issue as is without the extra cases.

[quote]Maiden3.16 wrote:
I think the value of human life could either be one of the most rare and valuable things in the universe, or just one of many different highly intelligent beings in the universe. From what we know, the former is more likely than the latter. As far as we know, there is no other life form in the universe that comes close to where us humans are. Take the average human and place them anywhere else in the universe and instantly they have the intelligence of a god. [/quote]

“What we know” of the universe is severely limited by our technology. We haven’t even traveled past the orbit of our own moon. Our probes haven’t even made it out of the gravity well of our own sun. Our best telescopes can only see the remnant images of what distant galaxies looked like millions or billions of years ago. We have no idea what’s out there.

We measure intelligence by human standards, and consider other species less valuable, as your post implied, because they don’t measure up intellectually to our own. But in all probability there is other intelligent life in the universe, which compared to theirs our intelligence would be no more impressive than the intelligence of chimps.

But you raise an interesting question. If the intrinsic value of the life of an organism dependent upon its intelligence vis-a-vis other species, is the value of an individual within that species similarly dependent upon its intelligence vis-a-vis other individuals?

[quote]SkyzykS wrote:
It’s like a good luck charm. If you believe in luck and it’s your charm it is extremely valuable and you are very fortunate to have it.

To someone else it’s just a dirty old penny. There are too many of them to even consider just one being very valuable.
[/quote]

Excellent point. Travel to one of the crowded nations of East and Southeast Asia and one will see firsthand how cheaply human life is valued.

A penny minted in 2013, 2003, or 1993 has a subjective value of one cent, which isn’t very much, but it only has that value because we believe that it does. its intrinsic value is far less than one cent, because the base metals comprising it are not worth very much. A 1973 penny has precisely the same subjective (face) value as a 1983 penny, but a much higher intrinsic value because the copper comprising it is worth more than one cent. And that doesn’t even address the numismatic value of some pennies, which have higher value because of their rarity.

A 1943 copper penny has the same face value as a 1943 steel penny, but whereas the steel pennies are extremely common, the copper penny is exceedingly rare, and therefore valued much higher. The steel penny has a numismatic value of about 15 times its face value, but the copper penny might be valued at an astounding fifteen billion times its face value.

Most of us are zinc pennies. Worth something because we believe we are worth something, and because others believe we are worth something, but common as sand or grass or pennies.

Every once in a while, though, one of us will emerge which is proven to be a 1943 copper penny. The life of this rare individual will be worth exactly as much, on face value, as every other penny in existence (one cent), but will be valued exponentially higher.

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
Again, this is subjective and depends on the situation. In the field with wolves, my life is of extreme value to the wolves. It is after all nourishment for the pack.
[/quote]

No, your life is worth precisely nothing to the wolves. It is only your dead corpse that they value. Like the aforementioned cattle, you are worth infinitely more to them dead than alive.

In our distant past, there were some wolves who managed to adapt to a niche of coexistence with humans: who evolved to the point of understanding the value of a living human, in terms of food and warmth and shelter. We now call them “dogs”, and we return the favor by valuing their lives more highly than those of wolves.

[quote]espenl wrote:
He is valuable to this board, the best thing to have happened to it in years.[/quote]

Wow.

Takk, bror. Du gjor meg stor aere. Jeg vil ikke glemme.

[quote]Jewbacca wrote:
Interesting, the question that has to be answered first, is to whom the child’s life belongs. Because the value of said life differs depending on the owner of that life.

If the life of the child belongs to the child, in almost all cases the child would view its own life as nearly priceless. Yes, there might be some exceptions, but almost all humans hold their lives very dear.

If the life of the child belongs to G-d, well, who knows what He thinks. But He certainly has gone to a lot of trouble getting us here. So, I suspect the value is quite high, as well.

Importantly, I do not believe the life of the child belongs to the parents, in that it is illegal and immoral to own another person — slavery, in fact. So, while parents act for a child, they act as steward for either the child himself (or herself) or G-d.[/quote]

I’m so glad you chose to contribute to this thread, Jewbacca. Thank you for your insights.

I respect someone who posits that no one can know what is on the Almighty’s mind far more than I respect those who would presume to know, and further presume to speak for him.

To your point of self-ownership and stewardship, I think this speaks to the intrinsic value of life: one is made a steward of a thing precisely because it has value. The lesson, I believe, to be learned from the story of Cain, and the answer to his rhetorical (and disingenuous) question “am I my brother’s keeper?” Is a resounding “yes”. We are, in fact, the keepers of our brothers and parents and children and neighbors precisely because of the intrinsic value of their lives.

I had wanted to avoid a theological discussion, but I am still interested in getting a Jewish perspective, because Lord knows we have had plenty of Christian perspectives.

In rabbinic tradition, does ending the life of an unborn baby carry the same moral weight as ending the life of an infant? Is the fetus’ life, in other words, as valuable as the infant’s, and what is the reasoning behind the answer?